Are You An Axe-Wielding Maniac? No Problem, Become A Life Coach

I was searching the web this week looking for some statistics on life and business coaching when I stumbled across a company that offered training to become a coach. The problem with coaching in the USA is that it is unregulated and as such anybody can set up a company to train coaches and knock out an impressive looking certificate from their very expensive printer to boot. Of course, there are also a lot of highly reputable and professional companies that require dedication, commitment and no little amount of time but it is the former organizations that concern me.

So anyway, I was looking at this site when I saw a ‘free test’ section. Sad though it may seem I am a sucker for these things and always have to have a go. In fact it could have been ‘see if you are the ideal candidate for receiving anesthetic-free brain surgery’ and I’d have been ticking away at those boxes with gusto to see if I qualified. This one was a tad more prosaic and was to decide whether I would potentially make a good coach so it was fairly pertinent and not an unreasonable use of my time. Quite frankly if it had come back with ‘No, get out of coaching now and run for the hills’ I’m not really sure what I would have done. Of course it didn’t, it told me I was highly suited to hand over all my money to them and train to be a life coach (Ok, maybe it didn’t say the bit about handing over ALL my money but it sure felt like that).

I was relieved, but them a thought struck me. I wonder of they ever say that somebody is unsuitable. I tried again and changed my scores somewhat and still got the same answer. Once more I did it and quite frankly gave ridiculous answers such as 0 on a scale or 0 –10 on my ability to listen and 1 on the same scale for an ability to show empathy for people in difficult situations. Congratulations! You are and ideal candidate to become a life coach! I wanted to type back, ‘are you serious, I’m quite obviously as mad as a hatter that has been on a mercury drinking binge and not at all suitable to coach anybody’? But they missed out that box.

Oh well, I guess my naivety caught me out once more and people even in this industry are not afraid to look to rip people off. So the moral of this story is that if you want to become a coach, research the company that you are thinking of using, and research them well. On the other hand if you just want to work with a coach make sure they have listening skills above 0 and maybe research them a bit too.

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